Don't Panic! There's A Way To Unsend Instagram Direct Messages

President Obama posed for a selfie with the Danish Prime Minister last week at Nelson Mandela's memorial service. ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images With the advent of Instagram Direct, a new feature from the photo-sharing platform that allows you to send photos to a select group of people, comes a lot of responsibility.

Is there anything that strikes more fear in the heart than the idea that you may have sent a photo to an unintended recipient?

Here's how it works: I took a photo of the New York Rangers celebrating a 4-3 shootout victory against the Calgary Flames at Madison Square Garden last night, so I went to send it to my brother via Instagram Direct:

Instagram

I changed my mind after I clicked send, so I immediately clicked the ellipses. It gave me the option to delete the photo:

Instagram

Instagram

I confirmed (quickly) that, yes, I wanted to delete the post, making it unavailable to my brother.

Instagram

After you do this, the photo will disappear from your outbox (but not from your camera roll on your phone). The recipient will receive a notification that you sent them a photo, but if you delete it before the green check mark appears on their photo (indicating that they saw the message), they won't be able to see or access the photo.